The Church certainly did try their best, didn't they? Fortunately, along came the Protestant revolution which put the scriptures in the hands of the people Not really. You are spreading a myth which has no historical or factual backing. It was Gutenberg's invention of the printing press that made it possible to make numerous copies of books without having to make them by manually copying them.
And even when that was made possible, how many people did the Protestants make literate? You may be surprised that the illiteracy rates in Protestant societies were no different than elsewhere and that it was not until well into the second half of the 20th century that (rudimentary) literacy became the norm.
In Protestant England, for example, as late as 1841, up to 33% of men and 44% of women were illiterate (they had to "sign" with a "mark"). This is 300 years after the Protestant Reformation.
As is, even the majority of those those who are considered "literate" only have ground-level literacy skills (newspapers, etc.), and as many as one third of the people in America have difficulty reading period.
How are then people going to "understand" the word of God? Never mind the fact that they have no cultural historical background to fall back on in order to more fully comprehend what is read either.
In fact, it seems we are reversing the trend, as the literacy rates appear to be declining.
There is a significant difference between being able to pronounce letters into words and cognitive and analytical literacy, or just being able to sing his or her name (i.e. knowing what one is actually reading).
The National center for education Statistics reports that among college graduates literacy actually declined between 1992 and 2003,and that less then 1/3 of college graduates were at the highest proficiency level (2003), including less than half of those with advanced degrees!
The Church certainly did try their best, didn't they? Fortunately, along came the Protestant revolution which put the scriptures in the hands of the people Not really. You are spreading a myth which has no historical or factual backing. It was Gutenberg's invention of the printing press that made it possible to make numerous copies of books without having to make them by manually copying them.
Yes, and it was the Protestant nations that allowed the Bible to be printed in the people's own language.
And even when that was made possible, how many people did the Protestants make literate? You may be surprised that the illiteracy rates in Protestant societies were no different than elsewhere and that it was not until well into the second half of the 20th century that (rudimentary) literacy became the norm. In Protestant England, for example, as late as 1841, up to 33% of men and 44% of women were illiterate (they had to "sign" with a "mark"). This is 300 years after the Protestant Reformation. As is, even the majority of those those who are considered "literate" only have ground-level literacy skills (newspapers, etc.), and as many as one third of the people in America have difficulty reading period.
The people were literate enough to read the word of God, even if they were not able to write, which is what literacy is regarded as.
How are then people going to "understand" the word of God? Never mind the fact that they have no cultural historical background to fall back on in order to more fully comprehend what is read either.
They had the words of God and Pastors to teach them the sense (Neh. 8:8)
Unlike you they actually believed what they were being taught and could check the Pastor to see if what he was saying was so (Acts 17:11)
Raymond Williams has argued that the first half of the 19th century was the moment of change following two thousand years when writing was known only to a minority.
By the 1840s, a majority of people in England had achieved at least minimal access to writing - between 65 per cent and 70 per cent - before the introduction of elementary state education.
Apart from church and charitable schools, which some children attended, but only for brief periods, adults and young people learned through a combination of self-help, 'mutual improvement', family learning, community organisation, the work of voluntary organisations and dissenting churches, e.g. attendance at Adult Sunday Schools, which offered a half-hour of writing before bible reading and learning as part of social and political movements.We would call it informal learning.
The measure of literacy was a measure of writing ability rather than reading: (emphasis added) the ability, or willingness, to sign the marriage register rather than mark it with an 'x'. However, the learning and use of writing for the working classes remained contested for several decades for various reasons.
http://www.nrdc.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=602&ArticleID=467
It would be interesting to compare the literacy rates in the nations that were largely Protestant and those of the RCC and Orthodox dominated states
